Overwatch League Push Map: Hot Take

The Overwatch League has been running now for two weeks. There are a few things that have been changed up from previous seasons. Of course, the obvious is that the matches are being played on the newest rendition of Overwatch. One of the smallest changes that could lead to the biggest implications is the map order in which the teams play. The switching of push maps for control maps is a bad choice.

Map order in past seasons

In the past, the Overwatch League switched up the order of maps that were played. Last season the league was played in the same map order of control, hybrid, escort, 2CP, and the tiebreaker being control again. Control being the best of three sub-maps brought the anticipation that a team could possibly bring it back.

Season 5 Map Order

With Overwatch 2, 2 CP was taken out of the map types. Instead, what was substituted in was the push map type. It would make sense that the push maps would just slide into the 4th position in the map order. This was the format for the opening week matches. The control maps started and ended the 5 map series. Week one brought the familiar.

The next week the push map’s position changed. Instead, it was slotted into where the control maps are, the first and last map in a 5 map series. Of course, this is strategic. No doubt, Blizzard saw that when it was a sweep of a 3-0 match then the viewers would not see a push map in that game. In week one 6  of the 13 matches ended up being 3-0s. That meant in about half of the matches there were no push games being played.

Blizzard will want to have their newest map type highlighted to garner interest.  Instead of changing the push map with escort or hybrid the league decided to double down and put it in the control map spot. That pushes out control if a series is a sweep [pun intended]. This is frustrating for many reasons.

Map Diversity

The push map type only has two maps right now. New Queen Street and Colosseo. That means if every match in the weekend went to 5 maps the viewers would see these two maps possibly 18 times. There are no other push maps yet to break the metonymy. The control map type in Overwatch 2 at least has three options Lijiang Tower, Oasis, and Ilios. This can make it seem repetitive if there are no other maps interspersed to break up those two maps. This one issue can easily be fixed when the Overwatch team will release more maps for the push type. Until then it is going to be an overdose of New Queen Street and Colosseo.

Playstyle of Push

Push is very similar to 2 CP in the sense that it can snowball. Already that has been a 100 to 0 when it came to push on Colosseo in the match of the Florida Mayhem versus the Vancouver Titans. The map type is chaotic, allowing anything to happen. But it feels bad. If it is to a tie-breaker a one-and-done push map does nothing for the excitement like a control best of three has done in past seasons.

Don’t Push Control Out

With control being such a staple, it feels bad not watching a control map each game. Push can be a great match to watch, but like all great things to have it force fed to the community makes it less desirable. Control has long been the tie-breaker map for series. If anything the choice of making the last map of the series push is more heinous than having it be the first map.

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